Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.

(It's not mandatory, but we also encourage providing a description of your image(s) for accessibility purposes! See here for a more detailed explanation and advice on how best to do this.)


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
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Today, our gardens were my biggest source of solace and hope, and I hope that yours are comfort for you all as well. I went hard planting more fruit bushes and will be hitting up our town's seed library tomorrow to hedge some bets for next spring.

One of the plant families I went big on this past year is Pycnanthemum - mountain mints. Not only are they a good source of nutrition for pollinators, they have the added benefit of being an abortifacient you can grow on the DL. There are a number of species, not just P. virginianum, so check to see what's endemic to your region and have a patch growing for your local support network <3

What's growing on with you all?

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Hey everybody!

It's autumn in the northern hemisphere, which means we're coming up on the best time for planting trees, shrubs, and other perennials. With that in mind, I thought it would be good to have a list of nurseries that do fall shipping or provide bare root plants for their communities. I'll sticky this thread until winter-ish, at which point we'll add it to the sidebar as a resource to refer back to.

Please share nurseries with which you've had good experiences, or whose ethics you appreciate, or any that generally give good vibes - this is your chance to reward them with additional business for being good community members and stewards. Please remember to add some kind of geographical information as well! There are plenty of nurseries that have large shipping areas, but the people who use your suggestion will be best served by having access to regionally acclimated plants.

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[Image description: a group of people, captioned "all the seeds I'm stratifying for spring", stand uncomfortably close around a woman seated on a couch who is captioned "the butter"]

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So, j have a lemon thyme plant and would like ideas for it.

Growing, cuttings, uses, literally anything about it

Anyone have experience?

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[Image description: Buster Bluth proclaims he's a monstera, rather than a monster, because of the picture of a monstera superimposed on his head]

This is admittedly stupid but I laughed a bunch while making it

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I wanted to share all the mushroom parties I came across in October on some local hiking trails I visit regularly. No idea what any of them are but are located in Southern Ontario.

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[Image description: a cartoon image of a translucent sheet draped over a potted plant, with text that says "the ghost of the plant I killed"]

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org to c/greenspace@beehaw.org
 
 

We've had an overnight low of 21°F already, despite the unseasonable daily high temps. One of the things I prefer to do after our first few frosts is harvesting our Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) because of the chemical changes they undergo - the starches change and they become a little sweeter.

If you haven't yet (and you haven't), please suggest a plant nursery doing good things in your region (or a region other than your own, that's fine too) so others visiting can put their plant dollars towards nurseries engaged in good works and social equity.

What's growing on with you all?

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I am feeling a little sad about the state of my progress in relation to the imaginary and arbitrary goals I had set for myself - every task in the garden reminds me of two not being done. I hope your garden adventures are filling you with joy, though!

Let's share how our gardens are growing, and encourage those seeds we've all planted this year, whether that's in our gardens, someone else's, or within ourselves

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white oak! (i.postimg.cc)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by autumn@beehaw.org to c/greenspace@beehaw.org
 
 

we had to cut down a maple in this spot last year, as it was in danger of collapsing on our house. i planted this three-foot-nothing white oak to take its place, and i'm excited to watch it grow! the soil is super rich and well-draining right here since we had the stump ground down and left all the mulch to decompose. basically black gold. bee heart eyes emoji

edit: seeing all those invasive privets in the background. bee sob emoji

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I am a bit swamped this week, as I am prepping for a fair on Saturday and also trying to get things squared around the house for my parents to come meet their granddaughter.

Our tomatoes are pretty much done for the season, and I think I'm going to have to clip and cure some of our pumpkins in the hoophouse rather than leaving them on the vine. This morning a friend let me take a truck bed's worth of wild elderberry cuttings for the fair and other fall sales, which was super nice of her.

What's growing on with you all?

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[Image description: small black seeds attached to white fluff have taken the place of the purple flowers that adorned this Sweet Joe Pye Weed]

I'm out collecting seeds from some Sweet Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum) with our newborn in a wrap, rockin' that Kuato vibe pretty hard.

If you haven't yet, pop over to this pinned thread to shout out a nursery that you've had a good experience with, possibly even one that's local to your area.

What's growing on with you all?

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[Image description: a three-panel meme with text. The first panel shows a person marked "caterpillars" asking "Hey, why'd you plant all these native plants for us?" In the second panel the person marked "me" replies "I want to feed the baby birds". The third panel has no text but shows the person marked "caterpillars" looking at me with surprise and alarm.]

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This climbing aloe has been in its pot for a couple of years. It lives inside during the cooler months and outside in the sun during the warm ones. It had a trellis until today when I removed it due to the plant not really climbing the trellis.

I'm thinking a couple things to improve the situation here:

  1. Repot it into something broader but not as deep, unless the roots are that deep.
  2. Perhaps a bit better drainage.
  3. A trellis that's closer to the plants height, can handle the weight, and isn't 6 feet tall.

What's your rating? Thoughts on how to improve this situation?

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My chili has parasites, the soft white blob ones, how do I remove them

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Have never seen those bugs before. A whole bunch of them on our only tomato surviver this year.

This is in Austria, if that helps.

Thanks!!

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Hey folks, I gave my presentation at our town library last night and had promised to share some links with you all, so here they are:

A link to the .pptx file can be found here (non google link)

A link to the google slides page can be found here

A link to the youtube video for anyone who wants to hear me speak can be found here, runtime is 33 and a half minutes. I've been experiencing trouble getting alternate links for you all so if someone has a suggestion I'm happy to edit and provide one.

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There's so much to do this time of year that the days are a blur! But my garlic is all planted out now, and I'm working on seed collecting as well. I've got my propagation presentation this Monday, sadly light on the memes so far (but working on it, if anyone has asexual-plant-reproduction-adjacent memery to offer).

What's growing on with you all?

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[Image description: a four panel meme of fictional character Poison Ivy dancing, science-ing, and smiling with a beaker in hand. In the middle of the image is text that reads "POV: When I successfully propagate those expensive cuttings"]

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